A rap battle between Bulgaria's Imera and America's Disaster takes place at Sofia's Mixtape 5 club on August 29, 2026. This is not a concert but a duel, a format where two rappers take turns delivering written verses at each other, with no backing track.

Disaster is the heavy side of this matchup. Born Bashir Yagami and based in Los Angeles, he was the King of the Dot champion in 2012, North America's biggest rap battle league. The list of opponents he has faced explains his weight: Hollohan, Soul Khan, Danny Myers, Tay Roc, Russia's Oxxxymiron and Hollow Da Don. He is also known for a short fuse, which over the years has brought him as many controversies as wins.

Imera comes out of the contemporary Bulgarian hip-hop scene, where he started during the 2010s, and is part of the 5 o'clock crew. Bulgarian rap has its own battle tradition, but an opponent of Disaster's rank showing up in Sofia is something else. International names in this format usually do not come further south than Vienna.

Mixtape 5 is a Sofia club with more than ten years of history and two halls, the larger one holding 750 people and the smaller one 200. A rap battle does not need a stage, it needs a room where the audience is close enough to catch every line, and the club delivers exactly that.

Tickets cost twenty euros, roughly 1,230 denars, through bilet.bg. Doors at 20:00. For readers who follow the battle rap scene, this is the closest place one of its champions can be seen live.